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Topic: Popular spot for dates (Read 1489 times)

kindheart

Tue, August 15, 2006 Police stopped and checked people in two vehicles yesterday after they were seen driving near a common Strathcona County rendezvous spot for prostitutes and johns. Strathcona County RCMP Cpl. Peter Nobles said officers checked the vehicles just before 6 a.m. for Project Kare, a task force investigating the murders and disappearances of more than a dozen area prostitutes.

Edmonton cops assisted Mounties in pulling over one of the vehicles - a white Ford pickup truck - on Victoria Trail about 5:50 a.m., city police said. No arrests were made and no charges were laid as a result of the stops, said Nobles.Const. Tamara Bellamy, a spokesman for Project Kare, said the vehicle stops were a "routine check" of people spotted in the known rendezvous point, a rural area just north of Sherwood Park."Our people in speaking with the girls on the street know it's an area where a lot of johns will take their dates," said Bellamy.

She said information on the vehicles stopped and the people inside would be forwarded to Project Kare, which is hunting for a serial killer believed to be preying on prostitutes in the Edmonton area."Every name that comes to us, we do background checks on. Eventually, we'll get a hit. You just never know." Meanwhile, Bellamy said Project Kare investigators are spending much of their time preparing their case against accused prostitute killer Thomas Svekla.

Svekla, 38, is charged with second-degree murder and interfering with a dead body in the slaying of 36-year-old Theresa Merrie Innes. Her body was found in a Fort Saskatchewan home May 7. Police allege her remains were brought to Fort Saskatchewan from High Level in a hockey bag.Svekla's preliminary hearing is set to begin Jan. 8. He has not been charged in any other slayings.